


sarasvati sung me to sleep

by serafinawitchwoman



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-07 00:51:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6778111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serafinawitchwoman/pseuds/serafinawitchwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice isn't dead.<br/>Alice has a radio.<br/>Alice hears everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sarasvati sung me to sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Stream-of-consciousness sapphic hot mess. Enjoy with caution. Contents may be feelsy.  
> "He" is the Thistle Man, just for clarity.  
> Please concrit!  
> Title from "Sarasvati" by Mary Lambert.  
> Bon appetit. And may you all love this one just as much as a good omelet.

Here are three lies Alice has told.

  1. _I've got another conference this weekend, baby._ (She didn't.)
  2. _It's nothing, love. I'm just tired to shit._ (That was half a truth. She was tired to shit. But it wasn't the reason her eyes were bloodshot.)
  3. _I'll always be with you._ (She knew full well He would find her. It was only a matter of time. Now that it had started, it would finish, inexorable and horrible and unregarded as dominoes falling.)



Alice catalogues these and other lies, like a gigantic computer file, a massive thesaurus of betrayal, etched indelibly into her head.  
She got a radio, one way, CB, with no "talk" button. He'd ripped it out. Or maybe she had. She can't remember anymore. Probably Him; it'd be His sense of irony, to give her back the thing which left her scent to track.  
Better, either way, that she not have a chance to explain herself. This is a one-way confessional, except Alice is the one who's sinned. So this is her penance.  
_Sometimes I hate you more than any of them, Alice._  
Fair.  
That's fair.  
It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.  
But it's fair.  
She's like a damn sports fan, screaming impotently at the radio in the dark. Rooting for her wife, shrieking in rage, biting her nails, cheering when the words _Fuck the Thistle Man!_ come through clear as a battle horn sounding.  
But mostly wishing, against all instinct, that the transmissions would stop.

  
_Go home! If you love me, go home!_ she sobs.

And a second later, as if she heard:  
_I can't go home, Alice. Home wasn't a place. Home was a person!_

So. So this is her sin. She made a woman homeless. She made tinder out of gunpowder and lies and somebody else came along and lit the touchpaper and burned the fucking house down.  
So. So her wife hates her. So.  
So?  
If she hates Alice enough maybe she'll go home. Get her job back, get remarried, make bread with someone else, have kids, and the place where Alice was in her head will scab over and scar but it will stop hurting. Alice will stop hurting her. And she'll be safe.

But she doesn't go home.  
She starts seeing things, following the same trail Alice followed, very nearly spot-for-spot. Except this time, it's far more terrifying, because it's happening to _her_. To Alice's wife.

How fucking _dare_ anything in this horrible senseless world make her wife cry.

But she is crying.  
And there is nothing Alice can do but leave bloody half-moons tattooed into her palms, eat her nails raw and lose her breath when the static cuts out. God. _God_.

_Find me out. Figure it out, know I didn't leave you, know what he is, know, know! Please! Please just know, please just realize I love you and go home!_

Alice isn't even conscious of doing it, until she hears the crying.  
_Oh God. Oh shit, shit, shit shit shit!  
Chanterelle. Miss you. Go home._

Alice spends the rest of the night sobbing into her threadbare pillow right alongside her tired, brilliant wife. She can't tell whether she's exhilarated or terrified. She got a message through. She worked, where the talk button did not. And now there's two of them, and her wife knows His MO.  
She tries not to hope.  
She tries not to be defiant.  
She tries not to be desperate.  
She knows it won't work.

Here are three truths Alice has told.

  1. _Miss you_. (Because yes, because of course, because always.)
  2. _You can still go home._ (Because yes. Because of course. Only now. Now there's a chance. A chance for them to be together again. She got a message through.)
  3. _I love you._ (Because yes, because of course. Because always.)
  4. But is a truth a truth if it cannot be believed?
  5. God, she hopes so.
  6. _See you at home, baby._



**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] sarasvati sung me to sleep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852668) by [Shmaylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shmaylor/pseuds/Shmaylor)




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